Marketing Research: Approaches, Methods and Applications in Europe

Self-assessment questions (answers follow below)

Chapter 16 Commercial proprietary techniques

1. What are the main categories of diagnostic techniques used by commercial market research agencies?

2. What is market measurement?

3. What are the key things marketing managers want to know about their markets?

4. What are the main measures of market size?

5. What are the main sources for all the various forms of market measurement data?

6. What are the main uses of market measurement data?

7. What are the main media involved with media audience measurement?

8. What sorts of people require media audience measurement data?

9. What are the main components of any television audience measurement system?

10. Why might radio audience measurement be more complex than for television?

11. For newspaper and magazine readership, what is average issue readership?

12. What is single source data?

13. What are respondents questioned about for the UK Target Group Index?

14. What are usage and attitude studies?

15. What will U&A studies normally cover?

16. What are the main ways in which customer satisfaction might be measured?

17. What will advertising tracking studies typically measure?

18. What are the main predictive techniques used by commercial market research agencies?

19. Comparative product concept tests may be arranged according to what kinds of experimental designs?

20. In a volume and brand share prediction, estimates of trial and repeat purchase will be obtained from what kinds of question?

21. In terms of methodology, what are the main choices for volume and brand share prediction?

ANSWER SECTION

1.

  • Market measurement
  • Media audience measurement
  • Single source data
  • Usage and attitude surveys
  • Customer satisfaction and relationship management research
  • Advertising tracking studies

2.

The recording or estimation of market characteristics on a continuous, periodic or occasional basis

3.

  • The size, composition and structure of the market for the company's brands, how that compares with competitor brands, and whether any changes are taking place,
  • The purchasing behavior associated with the company brands, competitor brands, and any trends in that behavior,
  • Product and brand awareness, product usage and attitudes towards the company brands, competitor brands, plus any changes.

4.

  • Sales
  • Brand shares
  • Market penetration
  • Deliveries

5.

  • Retail panels
  • Consumer panels
  • Omnibus surveys
  • Market tracking surveys

6.

  • To reduce the risks in or to maximize the opportunities from taking strategic or operational decisions in respect of marketing mix variables
  • To monitor changes and developments in the marketplace as they occur
  • To build up a marketing database that can be used as a resource for a variety of analyses
  • To use as a common currency in negotiations with suppliers, distributors, retailers, business customers, advertising agencies or media owners
  • To act as an input to market segmentation analyses

7.

  • The broadcast media - television and radio
  • The print media - newspapers, magazines and books
  • Outdoor media - posters, billboards, on buses, on the underground and so on
  • Film and video - cinema and video shops

8.

  • Program makers, broadcast schedulers, and newspaper and magazine editors who are planning the development of their media
  • Media owners selling to manufacturers and other organizations opportunities to communicate with an audience through advertising and sponsorship
  • Buyers of such opportunities - the advertisers whether in manufacturing, commerce or non profit-making organizations
  • Advertising agencies and market research agencies

9.

  • An establishment survey, which determines the characteristics of the population to be covered
  • The setting up and maintenance of a representative panel of households in which metering systems are installed
  • The installation of the metering equipment and the capture of data from panel households
  • Data processing and the publication of data to subscribers

10.

  • Listeners cannot always identify the station they are listening to
  • Radio listening is casual and undertaken while other activities are taking place
  • Listeners tend to be mobile

11.

The number of different people who read a single issue, averaged across issues

12.

Data on product usage and media usage taken from the same sample of respondents

13.

  • Their use of 500 different products covering 4,000 brands, across 14 sectors from appliances and durables to toiletries and cosmetics
  • Their readership of over 200 magazines and newspapers
  • Going to the cinema, listening to the radio, using the internet and seeing outdoor posters
  • Television viewing, including cable satellite and digital, video and teletext usage
  • The national, regional and local radio stations they listen to
  • Their exposure to outdoor advertising
  • Their lifestyles based on over 250 attitude questions

14.

A comprehensive survey, usually carried out on an ad hoc basis, that covers not only brand usage and purchasing behavior but also awareness and attitudes

15.

  • Brand or product awareness (including advertising awareness where applicable)
  • Brand or product choice behavior, for example, trial, adoption, loyalty and brand repertoires
  • Brand or product purchasing - frequency, source, prices paid, and quantities and size/style of pack
  • Usage patterns
  • Attitudes to or beliefs about the brand(s) or product(s)
  • The needs that the brands or products do or do not meet as far as the consumer is concerned

16.

  • Comparing expectations with perceived performance
  • Developing summated rating scales
  • Undertaking regression analysis
  • Using structural equation modeling
  • Using conjoint analysis

17.

  • Product use in the product field, for example, 'Which of these alcoholic drinks do you drink nowadays?'
  • Spontaneous awareness of brands, for example, 'What brands of cider can you think of?'
  • Prompted awareness, for example, 'Which of these brands have you heard of?'
  • Trial, for example, 'Have you ever tried any of these brands?
  • Past purchase, for example, 'Which of these brands have you bought recently?
  • Future purchase intent, for example, 'How likely would you say you are to buy Brand X in the next three months?
  • Brand images, for example, using attitude batteries like those for U&A studies, but shorter,
  • Advertising recall, for example, 'Which of these brands of cider have you seen advertised in local newspapers or magazines recently?'
  • Advertising content recall, for example, 'What can you remember about the last TV ad you saw for Walker’s crisps?'

18.

  • Testing products and product concepts
  • Advertising pre-testing
  • Volume and brand share prediction

19.

  • Matched monadic - separate sub-samples are given one concept each and the ratings are compared
  • Paired comparisons - getting respondents to compare concepts by expressing a preference in each combination of pairs of concepts,
  • Complete ranking - putting all the concepts in order of preference
  • Trade-off or conjoint analysis in which respondents are asked to choose between all combinations of product attributes
  • Comparison with existing products, for example, against the current brand leader

20.

  • Intention to purchase
  • Product evaluation
  • Perceived value-for-money
  • Claimed purchase frequency
  • Average number of units purchased
  • Competitive/substitute product usage

21.

  • Comparative or monadic testing, or some combination,
  • Macro modeling or micro modeling, or some combination,
  • Whether client inputs, for example concerning distribution, advertising or brand awareness, are modeled or assumed,
  • Whether various elements that made up the final prediction are modeled separately, thus trial and adoption may be modeled separately, as might switchers and new buyers,
  • Whether samples should be large or small; the samples used for STM models vary from a minimum of about 200 per test up to about 500. It is important to remember that an STM is a test, not a survey, so although sampling is important, no attempt is usually made to obtain a large representative sample. It is, however, necessary to get a regional spread of fieldwork,
  • Whether the respondents selected tend to be either product category users, or a general cross-section of the adult population.